


Bury a Friend

by Excuseyouclarke



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asylum, Chopped: The 100 Fanfic Challenge, F/M, Ghosts, Halloween, POV Alternating, POV Clarke, POV Emori, POV Raven, haunted building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27178286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Excuseyouclarke/pseuds/Excuseyouclarke
Summary: As part of their Halloween tradition of trying to scare themselves, Emori, Murphy, Bellamy, Clarke, Raven and Shaw decide to step it up this year by exploring an abandoned Asylum - only, it's not as abandoned as they once thought.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Emori/John Murphy (The 100), Raven Reyes/Miles Ezekiel Shaw
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: TROPED Choice: Horror





	Bury a Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Chopped! Horror so we have tropes yo!
> 
> Theme: Modern  
> Tropes:  
> Found Family  
> POV switch  
> Cliffhanger  
> Horror Trope: Haunted building

The moon hangs low and bright in the rapidly darkening sky. Raven had told them that a full moon on Halloween was rare, it only comes around once every 20 years. Clarke had looked over at Emori and rolled her eyes, of course she would know that. There’s a chill in the air that makes her wish she had brought a thicker jacket, but she won’t tell Murphy that, not when he’d already told her that it was going to be cold tonight.

“So,” Shaw, Ravens latest boyfriend starts “Is visiting abandoned Asylums something you make a habit of doing?”

“Only on Halloween,” John drawls, squeezing her hand “not always asylums, it started in our first year of College, there was this abandoned old house like, 30 minutes from campus that people said was haunted, so what better time to explore it than Halloween?”

“That seems like the worst time to explore an abandoned old house.” Shaw frowns. In all fairness, he was right. They’d lasted barely an hour and swore never to do it again when the wind blew through a smashed window and slammed a door shut. They had run out in a panic and cowered in Bellamy’s car - then laughed at themselves and drunk cheap vodka – another new tradition.

Despite saying they wouldn't do it again, the next year had found them drinking in an old graveyard and trying to scare each other with scary stories. The year after found them trailing through the woods in search of an old cabin that was supposed to be there. They had dragged along Wick, Ravens boyfriend at the time - he hadn’t lasted very long, in the woods or in Ravens life. 

So this year, they decided to step it up a notch. There had been rumours around this place for a long time, Mount Weather Asylum had closed down in the sixties, after an investigation found gross malpractice there. It had been chained up and left to rot since.

Rumours had started circulating years later, when people started breaking in to explore after dark. Rumours of strange happenings and lights flickering. Of footsteps in darkened hallways and screams in locked rooms.

Maybe she believed it, maybe she didn’t. But these little adventures they went on wasn’t to search out paranormal activity, they came out to have fun, to get away from life for a little while. These people were her family, all of them have their issues, they all have baggage weighing them down and somehow, they all found each other and they all loved each other more than their own blood did sometimes.

“What, scared Shaw?” Raven grins teasingly, nudging him with her shoulder.

“No” he snorts back, “you guys don’t actually believe in this stuff, right?”

“No” Bellamy scoffs, as an unsure murmur comes from the rest of the group.

“It’s not about whether or not we believe in it,” Raven assures him, “it’s just a bit of fun. It’s Halloween, what kind of faux mature adults would we be if we didn’t spook it up a little?”

Shaw rolls his eyes, but there’s an affectionate smile there. He might be good for Raven, Emori thinks. He’s level headed and just as clever as she is – which is bordering on genius level. He challenges her and keeps her grounded, Emori hopes this one will last.

“Consider this your initiation” Murphy smirks, “See if you’ve got what it takes. If you can handle tonight, you can handle Raven’s moods.”

“Hey,” Raven protests “My moods aren’t that bad. I’ll break your foot if you’re not careful.”

“I stand corrected, you’re perfectly pleasant” Murphy mutters. It earns a ripple of laughter as they approach the rusting gates. They look as if they’re barely still standing, a strong gust of wind could easily knock them over. But still, they’re standing strong and imposing over them, Emori wonders what history these gates alone hold. What horrors did they see come through, how many people came through these gates and never left?

 _Lots_ , say a voice in her mind. _Most_ , it continues, then – _You’ll see. Maybe you’ll be one of the ones who don’t make it out._

She shivers and clutches Murphy’s hand, the voice isn’t hers in her head, it’s a voice that once belonged to the walls of the asylum ahead of them. It’s a warning, telling her to run while she still can.

She’s about to suggest that maybe this isn’t the best of ideas, But Bellamy’s already stepping forward to pull on the chains wrapped around the gates. They fall to the floor easily, it’s only then she notices the broken padlock lay on the floor.

“Odd” she grimaces, surely it should be locked up.

“Oh come on, we’re not the first trespass here, I doubt we’ll be the last” Clarke tells her, helping Bellamy push open the gate. Its creaks and moans in protest, a chill runs down her spine at the sound.

The gravel leading on the path leading up to the asylum crunches under their feet, there was no chance of sneaking out down here. Next to them, the moon reflects in a black lake. It looks unearthly in there, too big and bright, the waters still enough that it looks like you could walk over to it and pick it up. There’s a strange pull to the lake that she can’t quite understand, there’s ghosts in that lake, tortured souls and bodies not at peace.

The building, though hard to see in the dark is clearly so unloved. Left to rot and crumble over years, it’s sad to see what used to be a beautiful manor has been abandoned over the years. Of course, theres been talk of it being taken over, people come and look through it, talks of it being turned into hotels and care homes, but nothing ever comes through. The stories of the ghosts that roam is enough to put most people off.

Not them, though. Evidently not others too. They’re not the first to have wondered these halls in search of ghosts. Bellamy swears they don’t exist, Shaw had rolled his eyes. She believes though, not that she’s ever seen one, or heard them – apart from whatever that voice was in her head. But she feels them, she feels it so clearly sometimes – a chill down her spine, a gust of icy wind that makes the hair on the nape of her neck stand up.

In one of the old foster homes she was in, a group home – this old building she always hated – there was a feeling. A feeling of somebody standing behind her in the dark, in the communal bedroom, late at night or early in the morning, she was never really sure – she got the feeling of somebody standing over her bed. She was always so paralysed by fear she couldn’t even open her eyes.

They’d called her a freak for that. The other kids. She hadn’t stayed there long; she didn’t stay anywhere long until she moved to College and found a bunch of misfits who loved her no matter what.

She gets a _feeling_ about this place, too. It’s not so much somebody standing behind her or over her, it’s not a chill, either. It’s a feeling of dread, something bad happened here – not something – it was lots of things. The entire place emits bad energy.

 _It’s a bad place,_ the voice sneers. _Full of bad people and worse ghosts._

Hands grip around her waist tightly, her heart constricts in fear and her breath catches in her throat. Everybody around her just laughs though, it takes her a beat too long to realise that it’s Murphy’s hands around her waist.

“Murphy stop fucking about” Clarke huffs, “god you gave me a heart attack. You alright Emori?”

“Yeah,” She gasps, trying to catch her breath back. “Don’t scare me like” she tries to bat Murphy’s hands from her waist, he just laughs and winds his arms around her.

“Sorry, you were miles away though. We were saying – shall we go in?” He kisses her cheek, she supposes it was supposed to make her feel better, but the voice in her mind screams _no, don’t go in there. You won’t all make it out alive._

“Yeah let’s go.” She nods, ignoring the warning and trailing behind Raven and Shaw. The door takes some convincing to open from Ravens boot, but once it does swing open, the smell hits them like a truck.

“It smells like old” Murphy complains as he screws up his nose.

“It is old, dumbass” Bellamy mutters, earning him a punch in the arm from Murphy as Clarke scatters out the way. Shaw’s eying then warily – he’ll get used to it, the rest of them have. They use the lights on their phones to try and look around, but all Emori can see is dust floating in the beams.

There’s nothing there. She had half expected there to be furniture covered with dust sheets like the house they went to years ago. It had felt like the house still had at least a bit of character, but this feels empty and unloved. The logical part of her brain knows she’s being irrational, thinking like that. The place had been abandoned for almost sixty years, why on earth would there still be furniture here? Why would anybody have left something here for all this time, it’s not like anybody was coming back for it.

It was but a shell of what it used to be, the walls and souls left behind forgotten over the years, left in a strange kind of purgatory.

“Hey” Murphy’s voice pulls her out of her head. He brushes a stray bit of hair from her face with a concerned look. “You alright? You keep sort of zoning out, if you don’t want to do this, we can ditch these clowns and go back home.”

“I’m fine” he assures him with a tight smile, “This place just sort of gives me the creeps, you know?”

He looks around and grimaces, “Yeah I know what you mean, but that’s find of why we’re here, right?”

She laughs and shakes her head, the sound ricochets off the walls, bouncing around the room. Everybody else had gone further in now, their phone flashlights barely making a difference in the blackness of the room.

Theres something lurking, just beyond the weak beams of light someone or something is lurking, and waiting.

“I suppose so” she agrees, taking his hand and following their friends deeper into the abyss.

The hallways and narrow and damp, weeds push through the cracks in the concrete – once upon a time, she imagines it would have smelt of bleach and lemon scented disinfectant. Doctors and nurses would have roamed these hallways, patients and porters and visitors. This place was once filled with so much life.

 _More sorrow than life,_ the voice tells her. She feels that too – the sorrow that haunts the shell of this old building.

Overhead, black spotted lights dot the ceiling, running in lines that would have once harshly illuminated the sterile walkway. Somewhere in the distance, a sharp clang stops them all in their tracks. Her spine stiffens in dread.

“What was that?” She asks shakily, the noise is gone now, but the fear stays.

“It was probably just the wind” Raven says, but even so she sounds unsure, a rare occurrence that does nothing to settle the war drums beating in her chest.

“Yeah” Clarke agrees quietly, “Probably the wind.”

“Come on, lets carry on” Bellamy mutters, pulling Clarke forward. Everybody follows easily enough but still, Emori can’t shake the feeling of dread. She lets herself be pulled along, neither reluctant or willing, she tries to just detach herself in the hopes that soon enough this will all be over, and she can go back to the tiny cove of an apartment that she and Murphy call home.

Uneven footsteps ring loud, that’s what she tries to concentrate on. Twelve feet, making a disjointed rhythm in a derelict hallway. They’re all here, together.

It’s just a building, she reminds herself. Just brick and cement. There’s nothing here that can hurt them.

_You don’t really believe that. Leave while you still can._

Just a building. Brick and cement.

A light flickering stops them in their tracks. Dead bugs illuminate in the covering in the quick flash of the bulb, highlighting the fear on everyone’s face.

“It’s an old building, the electrics are probably dodgy.” Raven tries, but surely even she knows that a bulb from the sixties shouldn’t be working anymore.

“Don’t make them like they used to” Emori tries to joke, though her voice shakes.

There’s a halfhearted laugh through the group, but the fear resonates through them. These are the rumours that they brushed off, scare tactics and scary stories designed to keep people from doing exactly what they’re here for.

“Is this really what you guys consider fun?” Shaw once again questions. She could see it when they told him what they were doing, the scepticism on his face and the doubt in his tone. She doubted it too, even though it was an old building, filled with so much death she probably couldn’t comprehend it. She didn’t expect this kind of energy to radiate through it.

“Yeah, who doesn’t love a good scare?” Murphy smirks “Good for the heart, right Clarke? You’re _almost_ a doctor.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, the tensions lifting now. “Yeah, sure Murphy. If that’s what you want to believe.”

“Now if we’re going on what I _want_ to believe”

“Shut up, Murphy,” Clarke almost smiles. The exchange relieved most of the tension though so they carry on.

She holds onto Murphy a little tighter, though.

At the end of the hallway, is a sign covered in so much dust they can no longer see what it was supposed to say. Shaw wipes it over with his jacket sleeve and shines his phone light on it.

 _Rooms 1-70_ is faintly visible, slowly wearing away with time.

_Aren’t we all?_

They came to explore, so Shaw and Raven lead the way around the corner to lines of doors and windows. The door handles all coated in a thick layer of dust and grime. Do others get this far when they come to explore? Or do they hear the strange noises and see the light flickering and run scared.

They should have run scared. They shouldn’t be here.

Bricks and cement, she reminds herself. It’s just brick and cement.

They come to a stop outside the first room, on yellowing, rotting paper in a crumbling plastic frame is a patient profile.

_DOB – 04/18/1941_

_Lightbourne, Josephine Ada_

_Narcissistic Personality Disorder - ongoing Lobotomy treatment._

“Lobotomy, interesting” Bellamy nods, Clarkes bats his chest.

“Don’t say that” She snaps “They’re not interesting, they’re horrible.”

Clarke’s right. Emori’s never heard much of them before, but she knows the basics of them, and really, she doesn’t want to know much more. The concept alone makes her feel sick.

“There was no privacy, was there?” Clarke frowns, on either side of the door are two large, wide spanning windows. There was no part of the bedroom that you couldn’t see. The beds still made; corners tucked in tight of what she assumes was once pristine white bed sheets. In the corner was a toilet and sink, a toothbrush still in its pot gathering dust.

She can’t imagine it, being watched 24 hours a day, even in your bed, even on the toilet, there was no time to just _be._

Murphy shakes the door handle and grimaces. “It’s locked from the inside.”

“What?” Raven quirks an eyebrow at him doubtfully. “How do you know that?”

“These aren’t different to the door handles that were fitted in the college dorms, the door handle goes rigid where you lock it, but you can still move it from the other side, look - ” he shakes the door handle again, it moves up and down and he pushes on the door, but it doesn’t budge.

How does a door lock from the inside? There are no windows to escape from, the widows aren’t smashed so they couldn’t have locked it then climbed through.

_The doors aren’t locked to keep you out, they’re locked to keep them in._

“I don’t think we should be messing with this.” Emori tells him, but he doesn’t listen. Instead, he elbows through the glass with ease, the aged glass shattering sadly.

“John” She warns, but he puts his arm through the smashed glass and turns the lock, pushing the door open. “We really shouldn’t be going in here, it’s their private space.”

“Emori’s right” Clarke agrees “We should respect –”

“Come on” John rolls his eyes “Where’s your sense of adventure? Nobodies lived in this room for decades, what are they going to do?”

“Haunt us?” Clarke suggests, Emori’s blood runs cold suddenly, she just can’t explain why.

Murphy walks into the rom without commenting, shining his light around the tiny space. How did people live like that? How long was she in there for?

_Forever._

She follows him in blindly, everybody but Clarke following. “We really shouldn’t, it doesn’t feel right.”

Does Clarke feel it too? The chilling feeling in her bones?

“Come on princess, I’ve got you” Bellamy smirks taking her hand and pulling her in next to him. “I won’t let the ghosts get to you.”

“Very reassuring” Clarke rolls her eyes, but there’s affection there, one that’s only saved for Bellamy.

There’s something, in the corner of her eye, something that used to be there in the old foster home, something lurking. Something that roots her to the spot.

“We should get out of here” She tells them feverishly. They shouldn’t be in here; they’re going to upset her.

Murphy gives her a questioning look, but he must be able to see the fear on her face – radiating from her – and nods. “Yeah okay, there’s nothing in here anyway.”

She sighs in relief, maybe now they can get out of here. But as she turns, she catches her reflection in the window that’s still intact. But it’s not her reflection that stands in front of her. It’s a rotting, grotesque face stuck in an eternal scream. With a gasp she drops her phone, the light doing nothing but illuminate the dirty concrete floor.

“Babe?”

“I’m fine” she scrambles to pick up her phone, straightening up fast but dreading what she’s about to see in the glass.

It’s just her though, no screaming corpse, just her own ashen face.

“Are you alright?” Murphy asks quietly, softly. She nods, it was nothing, just her imagination playing tricks on her. It’s dark and dusty here, it contorted her reflection, that was all.

“Yeah, fine. Trust me to get freaked out by my own reflection” She tries to laugh it off, but she’s worried she sounds hysterical.

“Good” Shaw nods, “You won’t mind if we split up, then? If no ones too scared.”

There’s a murmur between them, nervous and unsure, but also a little excited.

“I got you” Murphy assures her quietly. It does assure her, she’s always felt safest with him, she trusts him more than anyone, so if he says he’s got her, then she trusts that.

“Okay sure, whatever” she shrugs, and Raven and Shaw share a grin. Emori suspects it’s a ploy for them to sneak off together and have some alone time, even if it is in an abandoned asylum. They stroll off, hand in hand whispering to each other.

“We’ll meet back up in an hour?” Clarke shrugs, exchanging a look with Bellamy.

“Sure,” Murphy grins. “Don’t let the ghosts get ’cha”

Bellamy rolls his eyes “You too.” He and Clarke disappear down another corridor, and that leaves her and Murphy alone.

“So, what are we looking for?” He smirks, “the padded room? The Lobotomy room?”

“Don’t be awful” she pats his chest, he grins in return. “Everyone else went down the side corridors, lets see where straight on brings us.

“As you wish.”

It’s quieter, with just the two of them walking, and darker too, with not as many flashlights. They leave the rooms behind and blow off a sign directing them to the kitchen.

“Now that’s my kind of place” he grins, pulling her down another long corridor. There are no lights flickering now, or strange clangs or bangs. A strange sense of calmness comes over her, she knows she let her imagination run away from her earlier. It’s just a building, there’s nothing here but them.

Bricks and cement, it can’t hurt her.

The kitchens bright and airy, not what she expected from a place like this but it’s nice. The radio plays Little Richard softly in the background, Murphy stands at the stove, humming softly to himself. He’s got an apron tied around his waist, standing over a pot that smells like delicate herbs and vegetables. She knows that smell anywhere, it’s what he made on their first date, nervously serving it to her in his college dorm kitchen after locking Raven and Clarke out. His hands had shaken a little as he put the bowl in front of her, for all his bravado – he was the sweetest.

“What you cooking?” She smiles, leaning against the doorframe. She hears him chuckle and shake his head.

“You know exactly what I’m cooking” she can hear the affectionate smirk in his voice. “I cooked this for our first date, remember?”

“I remember” she smiles softly, she’d never forget. The song on the radio switches to Roses are Red by Bobby Vinton, John reaches over to turn it up a notch.

“Now, I’ve never been able to quite replicate what I made that night, honestly I was so nervous I don’t even remember what I put in it. The whole nights a bit of a blur but I got the best girl out of it.”

“Yeah, you did”

“Modest too”

She laughs, even after all these years it’s foreign to her, laughing so carefree in the kitchen with her love.

“Try this, see if it tastes alright.”

“I’m sure it’s perfect” she reassures him, she’s sure he just does it for validation most of the time. He turns with a wooden spoon in hand, poised with what should be his beef stew for her to try. Instead, whatever the hells on the spoon twists and crawls. “John” She whispers, this must be a joke, but when she looks at him, it’s not him that stares back. It’s the same face that was in the window, decaying and frail, jaw unhinged, and eye sockets bare of life.

 _“I told you to leave”_ it growls, Emori gasps in horror and stumbles backwards, her feet too fast and clumsy, about to trip over themselves when she crashes straight into Murphy, his hands catching her elbows and keeping her upright. She turns with a gasp, and he’s looking at her with open concern.

“What is it? What’s in there?” He demands, looking over her shoulder into the kitchen. She turns back to look too, but the rooms dim now, overgrown with weeds and vines, the tiles cracked and filthy. She can’t remember what she was so scared of now.

“Nothing, it’s fine – it was probably just an insect or something.”

He nods, albeit reluctantly and looks past her once again, but he won’t see anything. There’s nothing there to see.

“Come here” he murmurs, taking her hand. “I found something I want to show you”

“Sounds mysterious” she lets him pull her down another corridor, just as dank and dark as the others, and twice as long but finally they get to a room, a bright, harsh light casting a white glow onto a bed.

The rooms sterile, its only objective was functionality. By the look in Murphy’s eyes, the room didn’t need to be anything but functional.

“We shouldn’t be in here” She warns, but theres no real heat in her tone. She’s a little helpless when it comes to him, but then – she’s never been loved before, and she certainly never thought she’d ever be loved like _this._

“In the grand scheme of things, should we be _anywhere_?” He smirks, but his eyes are soft.

“Stop it” she laughs “You know that’s not what I meant.”

He smiles softly down at her, like she’s the only thing that matters to him. In that moment, he’s the only thing that matters to her. “Yeah, I do” he leans down to press his lips to hers, and she leans into the kiss, sighing contentedly and momentarily forgetting where she was, or why they were here. His hands trail to her hips as he walks her backwards towards the bed. She sinks down when the back of her legs hit the bed frame and pulls Murphy with her, the mattress is hard and uncomfortable beneath her, the springs dig painfully into her back but she doesn’t care as Murphy kisses his way down her neck.

He freezes suddenly when he gets down to her collarbone, and she frowns in confusion when he begins to splutter.

“John?” She utters tentatively, while it’s not out of character for him to goof around, this didn’t seem like that, it was a genuine choking sound, like someone had a hold of his throat. He lifts his head slowly, chocking and clawing at his throat. In the dank, dark room, she can see his face changing colour – a mottled purple spreading up his neck and over his face.

He lifts slowly off her, like he’s being dragged back by some invisible force. But it’s not invisible – because _she’s_ there. The same face she saw in the window, the same one she saw in the kitchen. Rotting and grotesque her soulless eye sockets bore in hers and growls _“I told you to get out”_

Emori screams, screams until her throat hurts and tears run down her face, but no one hears.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Clarke doesn’t believe much in ghosts. Her upbringing was much too serious to believe in things like that. But she doesn’t _not_ believe in them, either. She thinks it would be much too ignorant to believe that they’re the only ones on this plane of existence.

So, she tries to keep an open mind, but the seriousness ingrained in her as a child tells her to be logical. It’s just a building. If there are ghosts, they probably wouldn’t be hanging around here. If she were to come back, she’d be on a beach somewhere sipping Mojito’s and well, probably not getting a tan, but she would certainly want to live her afterlife relaxing.

“If you were to come back as a ghost, what would you do?” She questions Bellamy, who’s walking ever so slightly ahead of her, lighting their path with his phone flashlight.

He turns back and raises a brow at her. “Are you asking me if I’d haunt someone?”

“No” she huffs, but there’s no real seriousness to it. “Like, where would you go? Would you spend the rest of your time going around the same place you lived over and over again?”

There’s a small chuckle and shake of his head. “I’d go whoever you are, Princess”

“Cute” She rolls her eyes. “Well I’m going to a beach somewhere hot and drinking cocktails.”

His shoulders shrug a little like they do when he scrunches his nose up. “Oh, well distance is probably not an issue if you’re a ghost, right? So I’d probably go around all the museums in the world, just keep doing a circuit and finding new things as times go on.”

She lets out an incredulous laugh “You can do anything you want and you’d choose to carry on learning? You Bellamy Blake, are a nerd.”

He turns around again to grin at her. “Yeah, but you love me for it”

She’s glad he can’t see her blush in the dark. Even after all the years they’ve been together, she still gets stupid butterflies in her stomach when he smiles at her. “Yeah, I do.”

The hallways covered in cracks and spiderwebs, wherever Bellamy’s led them is much more derelict than anywhere else. It must have been the first place to be abandoned. She has to wonder why what was once such a beautiful building like this would ever be let in this kind of state.

“Nobody’s going to buy it when it’s this much of a mess. Besides, who’s going to buy an asylum? It was doomed from the start” Bellamy starts, Clarke frowns.

“What are you talking about?”

“What are _you_ talking about? You asked why the building was left like this”

“No, I thought it, I definitely didn’t say it out loud”

Bellamy turns to raise an eyebrow at her “Yeah? Then how did I hear it?”

How did he hear it – that’s the question. She would know if she said it out loud – she’s certain that she didn’t. But then, he’s got a point, he couldn’t have heard it unless she said it aloud. Unless he’s suddenly telepathic. God, she hopes he can’t hear her thoughts.

“Whatever” She shrugs “where are we going, anyway?”

“Now or in life?”

“Bellamy” she groans, he smirks at her anyway.

“Fucked if I know. I don’t know the layout; this part just looked a bit creepy.”

“Good to know” they come to stop eventually at a steel door, rusting and menacing looking. Something about it sends a chill down her spine, she can’t place exactly what it is about it that seems so threatening.

Bellamy wipes the plaque next to the door off to reveal _SURGERY ROOM 1_ engraved in it.

“What do you think they did in here?” She grimaces, it explains the chill deep within her.

“Surgery?”

“Bellamy”

“The lobotomies?” he suggests with a shrug, but his eyes are troubled. “Let’s go in and find out”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea”

“Clarke” he sighs, “There’s nothing in there, this place has been abandoned for years. And on the off chance there is something ghostly in there, I’ll protect you” he winks, and it draws a laugh from her. Somehow, he always manages to do that.

The doors not easy to open, it takes both of them pushing it to open it enough for them to squeeze through.

Naturally, there’s a thick coating of dust over everything, but it looks like at some point, it was set up ready for surgery. Instruments were laid out on a trolley, perfectly straight and in order. She runs a finger over them, stopping when she comes to something that makes her stomach drop.

“You were right” She murmurs to Bellamy “This is where they performed the Lobotomies”

He stands behind her, one hand oh her shoulder and the other shining light onto the drill. “For once, I’m not happy about being right”

It’s not right though, there’s something deeply wrong here – besides the fact they were doing lobotomies in the first place. “They shouldn’t have still been using a drill in the sixties” She frowns. Bellamy gives her a questioning glance. “They started using a different method, putting an ice pick through the eye instead of drilling through the skull”

Bellamy shivers beside her. Her mother, for some reason had told her about them when she was a teenager. She’s not sure how they got onto the conversation, but she remembers vividly the way her mother had explained it, cathartic, monotone – but in so much detail, it was like she’d done them herself.

“They don’t do that anymore, right – Lobotomies”

“They’re not called that anymore, they call it psychosurgery, and it’s really rare.”

He’s silent for a long moment, her hand trails along to the ice pick and suddenly, there’s a blinding pain right in her eye, like somebody’s –

“Clarke, are you alright?” Bellamy drops his phone onto the table holds her shoulders, gently turning her to face him. Even the slow movement sends a shockwave through her head. “Babe?”

“I’m fine” She assures him “It’s just a headache, probably from all the dust and stuff”

“Yeah” Bellamy agrees, though somewhat reluctantly. “Just a headache”

The pain eases, but the chill in her bones doesn’t.

“Come on, lets just keep looking around” she shakes her head, the pain just a dull thud behind her eyes now. Bellamy nods but still looks unsure.

She makes her way over to the far wall, large draws lined up there, similar to the ones in the mortuary she once snuck into at the hospital while her mother was working. She pulls open one of them, and there on the slab lays a girl, probably the same age as her, a fresh wound over her eye, still oozing blood. In a flash, she opens her eyes and piercing blue stares back at her. With a gasp she jumps back, but when she looks again, the girls gone, and all that’s left is an empty draw.

This place was wreaking havoc on her imagination.

Bellamy’s staring at her concerned, even in the dull light she knows that expression. “Come on” he tells her gently, “Let’s get out of here”

She nods in relief, there’s something about this place that sets her teeth on edge – probably the horrors that was once inflicted here. Bellamy takes her hand as they walk further down the hallway. There’s a draft that blows through and makes her shudder. Bellamy squeezes her hand. They come to stop outside of a room, like the one they saw before, with great windows either side that made sure there was no privacy.

In an old dirty frame is another patient profile. This one hits harder to home though.

_Griffin, Clarke Abigail – DOB 10/18/1998_

_Perpetual disappointment, unloved, unwanted. Unable to make own decisions._

_Date of Death – 10/31/2020_

Her stomach twists and her head pounds, she looks to Bellamy, but he’s staring at the paper like he’s seen ghost.

“Bellamy?”

He turns sharply to look at her, like she’s woken him from sleep walking, then he turns back to the frame and blinks in confusion. What did he see? Did he see his own name and fears written down so plainly, for everybody to see?

The frames blank again now, it was her imagination, it must have been. Wordlessly, he tugs on her arm and keeps walking, leading them further into the abyss. There’s a door at the end, finally a way out. It opens with a creak and shuts behind them with a bang.

They’re outside again, behind the building this time. The moons high enough in the sky that it offers enough light for them to get a vague view of their surroundings. They’re in woodland now, denser than it was coming up the path to get here.

Between the trees, is another crumbling building. White paint flaking off and brick decaying.

By their own volition, her feet take her towards the building. Bellamy follows, whether it’s by choice or not she doesn’t know, but he’s here next to her, and she feels safer for it.

The door lays on the ground, the wood long since wasted away. They step over it and shine their lights into the old building. Tiles line the floor and walls, shower cubicles separated by waist high walls that offer no sort of real privacy. It must have been no life, living here. Having to walk through the woods everyday for a shower where you stood exposed.

A row of rusting shower hooks sits on the back wall, and shower heads and dials song the walls next to them. In the middle of the floor is a solitary hole, all these showers and only one place for the water to go.

She gets this strange image of blood running down the tiles and swirling into the drain, it’s so vivid it could be happening right now.

But it’s not happening, of course it’s not. It’s just her imagination again, running wild yet again.

She walks to one on the shower cubicles and turns the dial, knowing that the waters not going to turn on, but trying away. She’s almost disappointed when theres not even as much as the pipes creaking, it’s irrational, and she’d be beyond freaked out if anything did happen.

A breeze blows in from the doorway and sends a chill down her neck. “Cold, princess?” Bellamy’s voice, suddenly closer than she expected makes her jumps around. He’s entirely too close, his flashlight switched off now but even in the dark she can see his smirk. He takes a step closer, crowding her space and slipping his hands under her sweater. Despite the cold outside, his hands are still burning. She shivers again, this time not from the cold though.

“Freezing” She simpers. Reaching up on her tiptoes and hovering her mouth just inches from his.

“Why don’t you let me warm you up then” he walks her backwards until her back hits the grimy tiles – she doesn’t care, especially not when his lips touch hers and she melts into him. Hands spread over her ribs under her sweater, and her hands travel to his shoulders, squeezing gently. She gets lost in the kiss, forgetting where they are, why they’re here – the rest of the world melts away when she’s with him. All the pressures of the outside world, the prejudices trying to tear them apart, the expectations on their shoulders, none of that matters when his mouths on hers.

He nips behind her ear and she giggles, the sound ricocheting off the tiles. His hips press into hers, and for one blissful moment, she slips out of her own mind and lets herself be with him.

Then the moment breaks when Bellamy freezes, lips hallway down her neck.

“Clarke?”

 _Don’t stop,_ she wants to say, but there’s something about his tone that’s not right. “Yeah?”

“Where are your hands?”

She squeezes his shoulders through his jacket “here.”

There’s a pause, and a deafening silence until finally he asks, “then who’s touching my back?”

Reality crashes back like a freight train and he whips around, but there’s no one there. Of course there’s not. They would have heard if Murphy and Emori or Raven and Shaw had come in, it’s not like the you could be quiet on these tiles, they seemed like they were designed to make as much noise as possible.

He turns back around with a haunted expression, “Clarke, there was somebody touching my back”

“It’s alright” She assures him, hands cupping his face. She wants nothing more than to come up with a logical explanation, she always has one, there always is one. It was probably his imagination, like the girl in the draw or seeing her name on the door of the room.

“We should leave” he whispers, his voice barely audible. She nods in agreement, but before either of them can move, footsteps from outside interrupt them. One set, she can’t imagine any of the others splitting up to find them when they didn’t know the layout.

A girl hums as she steps over the threshold, Clarke clings onto Bellamy’s jacket, trying desperately hard to stop him from turning around.

“Raven?” She calls out, “Emori?”

There’s no answer, just more humming. Bellamy’s watching her as she watches a girl walk past them to the cubicle next to where they were standing, wearing nothing but a towel, long dark hair ran down her back in knots and tangles, her face was rotting – skin peeling off exposing her decaying teeth and jaw.

Still she hums as she unwraps the towel from herself and hangs it on the hook. The shower next to them turns on with a squeak and a groan, bright red blood streams from the shower head and down into the drain in the middle of the tiles. Clarke can’t seem to look away as the blood coats her, dripping down her hair and over her rotting skin, into the hole in her jaw.

“Clarke” Bellamy whispers, “don’t look.”

She forces herself to look back at him, the fear and horror she feels is mirrored in his eyes, their shaky breaths loud over the blood running from the shower. Bellamy’s hand grasps hers and tugs a little, silently saying _let’s go._ She nods and follows him, trying to step lightly so not to draw attention to themselves. She winces as they step through the blood, this was definitely not a figment of her imagination, this was as real as Bellamy’s hand in hers.

They both freeze when the shower grinds to a halt. Fears icy grasp clenches her heart when a voice says “Hey, could you pass me the towel?”

She loosens her grip on Bellamy’s hand, dropping it as she takes a tentative step towards the brown ratty towel on the hook.

“Clarke” Bellamy hisses, but she’s stuck in a trance and can’t seem to break out. The towel feels like it’s about to fall apart under her fingers. Somehow it doesn’t, and she passes it over without really looking. She can’t look – she won’t look.

“Thanks” a hand reaches out to take it, maggots crawling over the decaying skin. She finally brings herself to look up, it’s just as horrifying as she thought it would be. Blood drips down the girls face and body, from her hair and onto the dark saturated floor. It’s drying quick, dark and sticky over her exposed dying skin. When she grins, Clarkes sure her jaw unhinges a little.

“Clarke lets go” Bellamy pulls on her hand again, harder this time, desperately trying to pull her away. She lets him, running behind him and back into the crisp night. The blood on her shoes stick to the leaves on the ground as they make their way back to where a lights coming through the door. It must be someone looking for them, maybe they’re just as freaked out as them.

They weren’t expecting the harsh white sterile lights as they burst through the door. Chatter and manic laughter bounce off the walls of the bustling corridor, nurses in white dresses lead patients in and out of rooms, somewhere further in the building, a drill sounds and somebody screams.

Clarke looks to Bellamy and whimpers “What the hell is going on?”

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

If you asked Raven, this was a stupid tradition.

The first year when they went to what Murphy called _The Murder House_ was bad enough, getting drunk in that old cemetery wasn’t awful, then she couldn’t really remember much of it. Then the year after they got lost in the woods trying to find some Cabin Emori swore blind was there.

What was wrong with watching scary movies at home? Or going to one of those mazes where people jump out at you. That would have been preferable over this. Walking around a damp old building with strange noises and covered in cobwebs and dust. Almost every corner looks like it was occupied by some woodland creature for the winter, Shaw just swore blind he saw a rat run across the floor which – there probably was.

So now they’re walking aimlessly around, she doesn’t even know what they’re supposed to be doing here, she’s just walking long enough to hope someone will call out soon enough that they’ve had enough and they’re ready to go home.

“So, this is really what you guys do for fun?” Shaw asks with a smirk.

“Not all the time, just Halloween. It started with Murphy trying to scare everyone, he scared himself more I think.”

Shaw snorts, he’s the serious kind, the not about to be freaked out by an old building kind. He’s her kind of person, smart enough to challenge her and keeps her on her toes. As of yet he’s not let her push him away, just gives her space when she needs it and comes back when she’s ready.

He always comes back, too. It’s more than what most of her exes did, sure they’d play ball the first few times, thinking she was playing hard to get, but they never realised that this was it. This was her, commitment issues and all it always scared them away.

Not him though. She’s found something special in him.

She just hopes he sees something in her, too. She’s sure she’ll find out after tonight.

Shaw comes to stop out side of a heavy metal door, an old faded _DANGER! NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS_ sign drilled into it. Shaw raises an eyebrow at her.

“Now that sounds like my kind of doorway”

She laughs and shakes her head, letting him pull it open with all his strength. She could help him, it looked heavy, but then, she’d probably miss the damn good show his biceps were putting on.

“Ladies first” He grins, gesturing towards a narrow staircase, perilous looking in the beam of her torch.

“Yeah, if you think I’m going down there first you’ve got another thing coming” she snorts, and he grins back at her.

“Scared, Reyes?”

“In your dreams.”

“Oh don’t worry, you are” he makes his way down the stairs before he can see her blush.

She follows after slowly, letting him see what’s down there first before she decides if it’s worth her time going all the way down. He disappears out her flashlight beam when he gets down to the bottom. As much as she swears that she doesn’t believe in all of this – ghosts in old buildings and things that go bump in the night, her heart still clenches when she can’t see him.

Finally, he lets out a low whistle. “Now this is your kind of room”, he doesn’t elaborate, which is probably because it’s a ploy to get her down there.

It’s a clever ploy though, he knows she can’t help herself so tentatively she makes her way down the stairs, the creak and groan, she’s sure they won’t hold out much longer, but she gets to the bottom eventually. She’s met with the heart of the building, the inner workings. The generators and boilers, everything that makes the building more than just some bricks stuck together.

What she’d give for some proper lighting and tools right about now.

“Do you think this was the first generator ever made?” Shaw asks with a wry smile.

“I bet it was” she says with a grin, he gets her like that, her enthusiasm for things she can take apart, to know the inner workings of, right from when she was a kid, barely old enough to be left on her own while her mother was out on benders she would take apart anything she could get her hands on. She once took apart the microwave and put it back together before her mother had got back. Not that she would have noticed if she hadn’t put it back together.

It was sort of a comfort thing, to know that she can make things fall apart and come back together again, much like herself. She’ll always put the pieces back together, even if it’s by herself.

Shaw circles her waist from behind and kisses behind her ear. “Good shout” he murmurs “getting time alone, even if it is in some old building.”

They don’t get all that much time alone, his job is demanding and so is balancing her last year of College and her internship. She suspects it’s why he didn’t particularly want to come tonight, she didn’t either, really. But she knows it was important to her friends, and in a way it’s important to her too, not so much the ‘tradition’ of trying to scare the shit out of themselves in creepy old buildings, but spending as much time together as possible. When College is over, they’ll all be off to different grad schools and jobs and more likely than not, they’ll all be separated.

The thought hurts, her friends were the family she never thought she’d have, that she never thought she wanted. She always told herself she was fine on her own, but that wasn’t the case. They proved that time and time again. So she accepts whatever time they get together now.

She turns in his arms and wraps her own arms around his neck. “Yeah? Even down here where it smells like seventy-year-old burnt out electric and oil?”

“Especially down here.” He kisses her forehead, soft and sweet and completely alien to her.

The moments interrupted though, by a painful whirring and groan. The generator comes to life and the boiler squeals in protest. The lights above them flicker alive, casting a harsh bright light over them. It shouldn’t do that – it shouldn’t be able to do that. The door to the stairs creaks open and slow, heavy footsteps make their way down.

A port, stocky man with rosy cheeks comes into view, a hefty toolbox in his grasp as he whistles a happy tune that seems so out of place her. He comes to a stop in front of the boiler. In the light Raven can see just how outdated it is, and how entirely unfit for purpose it is.

The man lets out a low whistle. “The things gonna blow” he sighs with a shake of his head. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs the sweat beading on his temples. “You kids should get out of here, it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

With a huff and groan, he makes his way up the stairs again, and leaves Ravens thoughts to run a million miles an hour. This isn’t real, it can’t be. This system has been shut down close on seventy years, it can’t suddenly come back to life, she’s imagining it.

But if she’s imagining it, then the look on Shaws face says they’re having some kind of shared hallucination.

The temperature gauge on the boiler is rising rapidly, too rapidly. It surpasses the red zone and creeps towards the danger zone. Whoever or whatever that man was, he was right, the things about to blow, and things like this take no prisoners. It squeals and vibrates under the pressure, up the stairs, somebody howls and screams. It’s not a sound she’s ever heard before, and it definitely wasn’t her friends.

“We need to get out of here” Shaw snaps urgently. He gives her shoulder a gentle push, enough to get her going before him. She makes it to the stairs just before the steam expels from the boiler – right onto Shaws face.

She’s helpless but to scream as his face burns and blisters under the piping steam he Collapses to the floor and Raven manages to dive under the steam, pulling his onto her lap as the skin melts away from his face. He takes his last dying breath like that, in her arms with her sobbing and begging him not to go. This was all her fault, she should have just accepted that he didn’t want to come, she should have listened to her gut instinct when it said that this was bad idea.

Now she’s lost Shaw and a part of herself, a part she’ll never get back. This, she thinks bitterly, is why you don’t fall in love.

“Raven get up, we have to go” Shaw shouts from in front of her. Grasping her arm and trying to pull her up. She looks to the floor where Shaw was, but there’s nothing now, no body, no steam. How could she have imagined that? He was right there in her arms, it was real. “Raven, come on, this place is fucking with my head.”

She couldn’t agree more. She stands on shaky legs and follows him up the stairs. They don’t feel nearly so fragile now, they were sturdy under feet, not like they were about to cave in.

The smell hits her as soon as she gets out of the stairwell, that sterile chemical smell that all hospitals seem to have lingering on every surface. It’s the sound that hits her next, the wailing and howling, the manic laughter and soothing voices of nurses as they roam the corridors – no longer dark and dank and littered with cobwebs, it’s bright and sterile, still uninviting but not in the same way it was before.

Shaw stands protectively in front of her, watching the movements in horror. “We have got to get out of this place” he mutters, leading them way down the corridor, she thinks it might be the same way as they came but it’s hard to tell now. The place is a labyrinth of winding halls and dead ends. She doesn’t think they’re ever going to get out when they bump into Bellamy and Clarke, both pale and shaken – they look how she feels. There’s blood and mud caked on their shoes – that’s a question for later though. For now, she just wants to get the hell out of here.

“What in gods name is happening? You see this too, right?” Bellamy asks tersely. Raven and Shaw both just nod, there’s no words to describe what they’re seeing here. “Good” he grunts “Let’s go find Emori and Murphy and get the hell out.”

They dodge patients and Nurses and Doctors who don’t even seem to realise they’re there. Finally they make their way back to the room they found first, smashed glass still litters floor as Emori and Murphy sit on the floor surrounded by the shards.

“what are you doing?” Raven snaps, both turn sharply towards her, there’s a bruise around Murphy’s neck that she’s certain she doesn’t want to know about. “We need to get out of here.”

“Agreed” Murphy mutters weakly as they both get to their feet. They’re close to the exit now, the radiators squeal and rattle, this place was a powder keg.

They all make their way out, except for Clarke, who’s frozen staring blankly at the bed.

“Clarke come on” Bellamy huffs, pulling her arm, but she doesn’t respond, and for one god awful moment Raven thinks she isn’t going to, but finally she looks up and blinks, then lets Bellamy pull her along.

The ends in sight, the door still cracked open how they left it earlier. The sounds are fading now too, the fluorescent lights flicker and fade, they’re almost free, she can feel it.

Then the door slams shut and the lights flicker out. Darkness overcomes them and a howling wind through the cracks in the wall chill them to the bone. There’s a deathly silence over the place now, no chatter, no laughter or wailing. When the wind dies down, she can barely even hear their shaky, frightened breaths.

She takes her phone out once again and switches on the flashlight, guiding the way to the door.

The hairs on the back of her neck rise suddenly and her spine stiffens, there’s someone behind her, breathing down her neck but – all of her friends are next to her, right in her eyeline.

 _“Run”_ whispers a voice, and she’s not one to argue, so she bolts, everybody else close on her heels and they pull and pull on the door, but it’s no use, it won’t open. Not even with the five of them pulling at it.

There were six of them when they came in though.

Clarkes still standing in the same spot as before, head cocked to the side watching them curiously.

“Clarke?” Raven asks cautiously, that feelings back again, the chill at the back of her neck, the feeling of somebody standing right behind her. She needs to run; she needs to get the hell out of here. Clarkes brows furrow and the lights flicker once again. Which each flickering of light comes a symphony of sounds; wailing and howling, the boiler screeching, nurses chatting, a trolley being rolled down the hall, the clang of keys in somebodies’ pocket.

 _“You shouldn’t have woken her up”_ growls the voice again. Next to her, Emori shudders – can she hear it too?

“Clarke, come on, we’re going” Bellamy takes a step forward towards her, he senses it too, there’s something not right about her.

“Go?” Clarke asks “I’m not going anywhere”

“This isn’t funny, Clarke” Murphy growls “we’re leaving this hell hole, now”

“Why would I leave my home?” she asks, her voice too high, too sweet to be Clarke. She grasps a strand of her hair and twists it around her fingers, smirking back at them in a way that is entirely _not Clarke_.

“Who the hell are you?” Bellamy thunders, “and what the hell have you done with my girlfriend?”

“Josephine Lightbourne” she simpers, batting her eyelashes. “I’m sorry but, your girlfriend’s gone. Her body was much too good to let go, and let’s face it, nobodies dumb enough to come around _here_ on Halloween, it’s our prime time to play.”

“No” Bellamy whispers, taking a step back, “You’re lying”

He must know she’s not; this is well beyond Clarkes prank playing abilities, and she wouldn’t do that to Bellamy. There’s a flicker of light again, a burst of sound, an unbearable heat. It’s about to blow.

“We have to leave” She tells them urgently, and there’s a ripple of agreement “Just grab whoever the hell that is and let’s _go_ ”.

Not Clarke puts up more of a fight than expected, she digs her heels and pulls back from Bellamy’s attempts to get her to leave.

She’s not sure where Emori gets the metal pipe from, but it works well enough to knock Not Clarke out cold.

“Emori!” Bellamy snaps, diving to catch her before she falls. “What the hell?”

“Never mind what the hell, the doors open” Shaw snaps, and she’s never been so relieved in all her life to see a door opening. They run down the path, the moon guiding their way back to where their cars had been abandoned earlier. It seemed so innocent then, a walk around an old empty building, scare themselves then back to Bellamy’s apartment to drink cheap vodka and eat pizza.

“Meet back at my place” Bellamy calls, laying Clarke in the backseat of his truck. She jumps in shotgun of Shaw’s car, Murphy and Emori climb into the back. It’s a tense drive, only broken by the occasional direction when the lose sight of Bellamy’s truck.

“Interesting choice” Murphy finally murmurs, “Hitting Clarke over the head like that” there might be a hint of smirk in his voice, but Raven never can tell.

“That wasn’t Clarke” She mutters back quietly. “They told me to do it, they told me to get out”

Murphy frowns, “Who told you?”

Emori doesn’t answer, Raven turns in her seat to reach for her hand. She gets it, they told her too. She can’t explain how, but they did.

When she turns back around again, a chill runs down her spine and cold breath ghosts her skin, a hand grasps at her shoulder, but when she touches it, there’s nothing there. Whatever the hell it is, she’s brought it back with her.

They get back to Bellamy’s apartment in record time, climbing the stairs in silence and letting themselves in. Bellamy’s draping Clarke over the sofa, still unconscious and hopefully not possessed anymore.

Murphy passes around the cheap vodka they’d bought for tonight, the mood miles away from what she had expected when they left earlier.

“Did that actually happen?” Emori asks quietly, knuckles white around her glass.

“Either that or we were on one hell of a trip” Shaw mutters, it eases the tension slightly, but not by much. Raven squeezes his knee and he wraps an arm around her shoulder in response.

“What do we do with her when she wakes up?” Murphy asks, jerking his head towards Clarke.

“Murphy” Bellamy warns, eyes hard.

“I’m just saying, what if she’s still not Clarke? Do we take her to the hospital? Get an exorcist? Take her back, get a refund?”

“John” Emori snaps, hitting his arm “Stop it, she’s going to be fine”

Clarke groans then, sitting up clutching her head. The chill down Ravens spines back again, somebodies behind her, breathing down her neck. Her whole body trembles in fear but her eyes stay on Clarke.

“Oh thank god” Bellamy breathes, brushing the hair out of her face “Are you alright?”

“Peachy keen Josephine” she mutters, batting Bellamy’s hand away.

Bellamy’s face falls at the realisation that this isn’t Clarke, she’s probably long gone now.

“I swear to god” Bellamy growls “What have done with her?”

“Oh please” she rolls her eyes “She’s at peace, let her be. I’m not even your biggest concern right now.”

“What are you talking about?” Murphy frowns. “What’s our biggest concern?”

Josephine looks over to Raven and raises an eyebrow at her with a smirk, then looks over her shoulder, right to where the chill on her neck is.

“ _She_ is.”


End file.
